Blogger Steve Pavlina says that you can discover your life's purpose in as little as twenty minutes. To do so, complete the following four steps:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type.
2. Write at the top, "What is my true purpose in life?"
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn't have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

Steve writes that "usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is" and that you should expect to generate some repeats or similar answers. All this is fine so long as you keep on writing, even if your answers begin to resemble variations on "I don't have a purpose" or "Life is meaningless".

Also, it's not enough to react emotionally to an answer, according to Pavlina. You need to keep going until the emotion brings forth tears. If you feel the urge to quit, take a two minute break and then resume. According to the post, around 80-90 percent of those who try this method will reach their answer in less than an hour.

Understandably many people will doubt its efficacy (if only it were this easy), but if you're still searching for your purpose and have the time and inclination to try this out, let us know how you fare in the comments.

Ed. note: Hey all, for what it's worth: The Pavlina post is admittedly a little over the top (okay, a lot over the top—most of his stuff is), but the nugget of the post isn't all that bad. I'd certainly take the whole "life's purpose" thing with an enormous grain of salt, but if you reduce it to a simple exercise for trying to gain focus, it's not a bad suggestion at all. -AP